At 8/29/01 9:15 AM, Cameron Powell wrote: >OpenSRS has already got an API on our site; check it out. Your names could >be registered through them, ideally with a tag indicating that the customer >is nominally yours. I confess I don't have the technical arrangements at my >fingertips, but it is something that we have discussed with TUCOWS and that >is not likely to be an insuperable obstacle. Hmmm. So if the names would be registered through OpenSRS, why should my customer pay SnapNames $49 to try the domain over and over again, when I could theoretically do the exact same thing myself (except that OpenSRS wouldn't let me because I haven't paid them an additional fee)? When you cut to the heart of the matter, SnapNames is just a domain reseller for various registrars, not unlike the rest of us -- except that their business model is to charge the customer a premium fee, and use some of that extra income to buy more connections to the registry (via various registrars) than most resellers are allowed. Given that, this all cuts too close to home for me; it feels too much like SnapNames is just another competitor. While one could make the argument that a buck or two per domain is better than nothing, I'd much rather have the customer myself and manage the relationship and keep all the profit -- otherwise I'd just become a NSI affiliate and start spamming the world. I do agree that there is value in the general idea, though, and that customers would be willing to pay for it. I'd rather see OpenSRS develop their own model for back-ordering domains and using those spare connections, and make it available to resellers, who could set their own end-user pricing. If I recall correctly, a reseller can make arrangements with OpenSRS to get permission for heavy usage, but I'm not talking about that -- I mean it would be nice to be able to back-order an occasional domain from time to time and have OpenSRS attempt to obtain it for me, just like SnapNames does. If there was a sanctioned system for doing it, it might even cut down on some abuse of the OpenSRS system by resellers (or maybe not). But in any case, I would much rather not pay a fee up front for a domain I might not get; that would be a real problem for me. Maybe if SnapNames sufficiently developed the API and changed their pricing for resellers it could become almost transparent, as I've described above, but it doesn't really seem like the kind of thing that requires a middleman. This feels like something OpenSRS could offer themselves, making a profit by charging a flat-rate reasonable premium fee if they actually get the domain on behalf of a reseller. (Or by auctioning the back-order slot to the highest bidder, although that would obviously be more difficult to implement in a reseller model as it requires ongoing customer interaction.) -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
